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Author’s cyberstalker imprisoned

Man who admitted stalking US author Kristine Carlson and her daughter for seven years sentenced in Wales

A man who stalked best-selling US author Kristine Carlson for seven years has been sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment.

Having apparently been told by a psychic that he would meet his future mother-in-law on a plane, Mark Jury, a wedding photographer, became obsessed with Ms Carlson and her daughter after she sat next to him on a plane in 2007. In what the Judge described as “prolonged, determined and frightening conduct over a number of years”, he hacked into their social media accounts, wrote about and impersonated them online, bombarded them with messages and even travelled from his home in Wales to theirs in California. He demanded £150,000 to stop his harassment.

After admitting two counts of stalking contrary to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 in Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court, Mr Jury was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

5RB‘s Richard Munden, instructed by Bevan Kidwell, acted for Ms Carlson in civil proceedings that led to Mr Jury giving undertakings to cease his behaviour. It was after he had breached these, and the FBI had investigated, that he was brought to trial in Wales.